Sy Safransky

September 2005

Words shuffle into my writing room, complaining that I’ve woken them too early. I remind them that I just work here, that I don’t like it any better than they do. They don’t believe me. They know that I’m the one who unlocks their cells.

August 2005

After 9/11, I promised to stop demonizing our leaders. That’s what al-Qaeda does, and it’s just a matter of degree.

July 2005

Today is four years since the accident that nearly took my daughter’s life; four years since the phone call that yanked me out of my Sunday routine, my idiotic notion that the day would go the way I wanted it to. It was a car crash. It could have been a bolt of lightning, Zeus showing off.

Friend Of The Sun

May 2005

Infinity to the left of me, infinity to the right — and, within me, a vast inner space of thoughts and feelings. My space, I call it, just as I call this body mine. My country. My planet. And the stars — are they mine, too? And what of the darkness between them?

April 2005

I told a friend I was still feeling aggrieved about last November’s election. He suggested I take a more philosophical view. The ancient Chinese, he said, used to consider themselves fortunate if a great emperor came along once every five hundred years.

March 2005

The reality of impermanence is hard to bear. Sometimes I try to shut it out; like everyone, I have my ways. But, paradoxically, I feel more alive, more grounded, when I acknowledge that I can’t know anything about the future. Anything. Tomorrow is a secret the world knows how to keep.

February 2005

It’s not just Norma I’m married to, after all. I’m married to loneliness. I’m married to fear. I’m married to desire. I’m a devoted husband. I treat each of my wives with respect.

January 2005

I spied you once when you thought you were alone, when all the money-boys and patriots were off somewhere making jokes at your expense. I saw you rise from the bed and stand by the window. You were naked. You were beautiful. O America, I couldn’t turn away. You closed your eyes and shook your head as if to keep from weeping. And then, America, you started singing.

December 2004

Democracy didn’t leave behind a forwarding address. Who can blame her? Maybe she just got tired of being ignored, and lied to, and slapped around.